Moe Lane

Oh, am I anticipating?  My bad.

The United States Senate voted today to confirm Sen. John Kerry as the next secretary of state.

Just five days ago, Kerry, a democratic senator from Massachusetts, testified before the committee he chaired. As NPR’s Michele Kelemen reported at the time, the hearing was a love fest.

94-3; Twitter says that Cornyn, Cruz, & Inhofe all voted no.  Gonna be a humdinger of a campaign, there; the Democrats are right now kind of hoping that Brown maybe wants to run for Governor, instead, largely because Brown’s polling numbers are wicked good, to quote the regional patois of my extended family.  Guess we’ll see, huh?

Moe Lane

PS: Yeah, Kerry’s a putz.  On the bright side, I still have strong hopes that his wife will start a diplomatic incident with somebody I don’t like anyway.

46 > 45.

This is a few days old, but Buzzfeed seems to be a little upset that the Swift Boat people can count:

Leading figures in the controversial conservative group that attacked — and at times distorted — John Kerry’s military record to derail his bid for the White House say they won’t actively fight his nomination as Secretary of State.

Let’s leave aside for the moment the slanted commentary in the sentence above; what’s really torquing people on the Left off about this is apparently that, given a choice, conservatives would rather have Hagel’s scalps than Kerry’s.  This should not be surprising, though.  If John Kerry becomes Secretary of State, that’s it.  He’s gone from everybody’s lives in four years, maximum.  And we have an excellent shot at acquiring that seat.  And, as some of the Swift Boat folks noted, it’s not like Kerry was up for SecDef.  That might have started a fight. (more…)

I first saw this reported by the New York Times; it was later confirmed by the President.  Well… elections have consequences, huh?  Here’s one.  And I’ll be honest: I don’t think that we can derail this nomination, particularly if we want to also derail the nomination of apparently-not-too-fond-of-teh-gays-either Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense.  There’s a finite amount of political capital available; some of it got spent killing the Susan Rice nomination; Kerry is merely seriously despised on one side of the aisle, while Hagel-loathing is shaping up to be more bipartisan; and if we pop Kerry out of that seat we could very well replace him with a Republican – and don’t undervalue that: Scott Brown stays bought.

Yeah, I know.  I’d love to torpedo this one, too.  But we’re on a budget, here.

Moe Lane

To sum up Breitbart (by way of Hot Air): Susan Rice’s partisans are pretty much infuriated at… somebody.  Take your pick: John Kerry’s partisans; the Republican party; the Obama White House; or all of the above.  Said Rice partisans feel that Ambassador Rice was chopped off at the knees (she was) by the administration over Benghazi (it did) unfairly (actually, no, it was eminently fair)… they’re also not very happy about the fact that apparently the GOP has collectively made the cold calculation that freeing up John Kerry’s Senate seat is worth letting John Kerry be Secretary of State for a couple of years*.

I know.  How dare we. (more…)

…John Kerry becomes the next Secretary of State. From the Boston Globe:

“I expect to do the same thing I did last time,” [MA Governor Deval] Patrick told reporters. “I’m not ruling out other options. But, as a practical matter, it’s hard for me to imagine how you could serve in the Senate for a four-month period and also run a statewide campaign in a four-month period and do both of them well.”

The Globe goes on to note why the Democrats are in a bit of a mess on this one, and simply can’t appoint somebody for the rest of Kerry’s term; and it’s… largely because of John Kerry, Mitt Romney, & Ted Kennedy.  In 2004, Kerry was running for President, and Romney was the governor of MA at the time.  So, the legislature at the time decided that the governor of MA should NOT be allowed to pick Kerry’s successor, so they changed the law*.  Then, several years later, when it was clear that Ted Kennedy would be dying in office, the legislature changed the law again in order to minimize the caretaker period before a special election could be held**. (more…)

The first reports are coming in: he’ll be replaced as Foreign Relations Chair with, oh boy, Bob Menendez.  Oh, well, at least I’ll have something to write about for the next two years.

Via Hot Air Headlines.

Moe Lane

PS: In completely unrelated news, outgoing US Senator Scott Brown was seen today removing the acoustic tiles from his Senate office, laying various light but bulky personal items from his office onto the framework, then replacing the tiles*.  When asked why, he replied** “Faster this way.  Cheaper than a storage unit, too.”

*This did not actually happen.

**Neither did this.

You are?

CALL YOUR AGENT.

Both Gen. David Petraeus and Gen. John Allen intervened in the same nasty child custody battle involving Natalie Khawam, the “psychologically unstable” twin sister of Jill Kelley, whose bombshell claims of being threatened by Petraeus’ lover led to the top spy’s resignation last week, the Post has learned.

[snip]

And in court documents filed by Kelley’s sister Natalie Khawam, she name-drops both Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island — who both have ties to a Providence, RI, lawyer/Democratic fundraiser who loaned a whopping $300,000 to Khawam.

(more…)

Bretibart.com passes along the quote:

Norah O’Donnell: “Some Democrats say [Obama's] campaign needs a wake-up call.  Bill Plante is here with that part of the story.  Bill, you’ve been talking to your sources; what are they saying?

Correspondent Bill Plante: “Well Norah, they’re simply upset and really outraged.  They blame the President’s team, first of all, for not preparing him to meet the challenge of an aggressive Mitt Romney.  They say that nobody in the room challenged him, including the guy that he was debating with, John Kerry, because, as they say, he wants to be Secretary of State so he’s not going to get in the President’s face.

I can’t remember where I saw this first, sorry.  Still… man, but how some people have come down in the world.  I mean, having to resort to blaming your fail on John Kerry?  Shudder…

…or else his new email writer wasn’t eligible to vote in 2004, and thus doesn’t know why this is funny:

I have one message burned into my memory for everyone who cares about the outcome of this year’s presidential election:

Ann Althouse gets it – hint: it has to do with things being SEARED, SEARED! into John Kerry’s memories – so the question is, did John Kerry?

:pause:

…Naah.

It’s bloody perfect.  The more you look at it, the more symbolic it gets.

Via the indispensable Zombie. (This is a link to Zombietime’s main site, as per the standard request about using pictures from Zombietime.)

Mind you, you wouldn’t know that from the Washington Post’s article on the arrest of John Kiriakou.  While the Washington Post – from appearances, somewhat reluctantly – reported that Kiriakou (a former CIA officer and Senate Foreign Affairs staffer) had been arrested for revealing names, operations and investigations to the media back in 2008-2009, the paper completely neglected to mention who Kiriakou ended up working for – which is to say, Senator John Kerry (D, MA).  Oddly enough, the Washington Post managed to simultaneous note that “[t]he committee had not been aware of the criminal probe of Kiriakou, according to a former U.S. official familiar with the matter” in its article, while unaccountably mentioning that Kiriakou has been leaking classified information publicly for years – including to the, well, Washington Post.  One can only guess why a premiere Left-Establishment paper would be so eager to whitewash the record when it comes to protecting prominent Left-Establishment politicians… like, say, John Kerry, who is the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee (at least until next January)… (more…)

I don’t know why Ben Smith called this “SwiftVets Revenge,” though: as far as I can tell, they didn’t have anything to do with what happened here.  Which was back in August of last year, by the way – and no, I don’t know why this was suddenly news, then.

In a highly unusual move, the Navy secretary has stripped a Silver Star awarded to a retired captain and Vietnam swift boat veteran who is serving a federal prison sentence after admitting to possessing child pornography.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus revoked the Silver Star, the nation’s third-highest valor award, which was awarded nearly 20 years ago to retired Capt. Wade Sanders of San Diego.

Sanders, for those who don’t remember, was the guy that introduced John Kerry at the ’04 Democratic convention (infamously known for the ridiculous ‘reporting for duty‘ beginning and the hysterical ‘balloons‘ ending); and while Sanders went round and round with the Swift Boats people I can’t imagine that anybody actually really cares at this point about that element of the 2004 elections.  Certainly it – and the Democratic candidate – has been overshadowed by subsequent events. (more…)